


I Will Hold

by yet_intrepid



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Captivity, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Hostage Situations, Injury
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-27
Updated: 2014-03-10
Packaged: 2018-01-10 05:04:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1155425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yet_intrepid/pseuds/yet_intrepid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Faramir is held for ransom, he struggles both with sympathy for his captors and with powerlessness to negotiate a mutually advantageous outcome. Denethor holds firm to past decisions, at Faramir's expense. And Boromir, who has no patience for politics when his brother's safety is concerned, plans a rescue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

His captors have horses, but Faramir walks, his arms stretched before him and bound to a saddle. The cut to his ribs is still pulsing out blood. He fights the waves of dizzying pain, fights the weakness in his knees.

He does not know, yet, what they want with him, but there will be time to think on that when he does not have to think on keeping pace with a horse while his side stings fiercely and his body echoes the pain. Right now he thinks about walking, about endurance, about staying on his feet until the group makes camp. They have walked through the night, and now that dawn approaches, he dares to hope that rest will come before long.

Step and step and stumble and step (Boromir, at least, got away) and step and step and stumble (although it would be a comfort to see that grim smile of his brother’s just now) and step, step, step. Halt.

They are talking ahead, speaking Westron, but he cannot make it out; the buzzing in his head is too strong. Faramir drops wearily to his knees on the leafy forest floor, then sits, pressing his bound hands against his side. He tries not to think about how much of his tunic is crusted with dried blood.

Someone comes to bring him water then, and he drinks eagerly, but when the water skin is taken away he swallows and finds his voice.

“I am still bleeding,” he says, calmly as he can. “If you spare me bandages, I will be better able to travel.”

“Let me see,” says the man.

Faramir rises on his knees so his tunic can be pulled up, revealing the wound. He draws a hissing breath through his teeth as ungentle fingers touch its edges.

“It’s shallow enough,” the man announces. “Only an hour till we get back to base; we’ll see to it there.”

Faramir wonders why they stopped, if they are so close, but he does not ask, because the rope that ties him to the saddle is being unfastened now. He gets to his feet again, squeezing his eyes shut a moment as he steadies himself. The man waits for him to find his footing before taking the end of the rope and leading him through the clearing.

He notices the leader at once, set apart by an air of command and a pair of fine boots. When the man with the rope pushes Faramir to kneel before him, Faramir does not resist. He presses his forearm against his throbbing side and keeps his chin level.

“You are the younger son of the steward.”

Faramir nods. His heart is racing at the chance to get information, but he does not rush answering. “And on that basis, I presume, you hold me for a ransom fee.”

“A fee, yes, but not only that.” The leader regards him keenly; Faramir raises his eyebrows. “But come, in order to send back our demands, I will need a token of yours. What will your father recognize?”

That is the wrong question, of course; Faramir can imagine the scene well enough. It is Boromir who will demand proof that Faramir lives, Boromir who will be restless until Faramir returns. Denethor—

Faramir sighs. The stewards made a policy against ransom long ago, and Faramir knows deep in his heart that Denethor will not break this for his younger son.

“Here,” he says, “this necklace.” And he reaches clumsily behind his neck as though to pull the cord over his head, but instead he unties it with a careful tug..

He catches it, makes the untying look like an accident. Murmurs an apology. His fingers are stiff but still quick as he replaces what had been a square knot with a sheet bend.

Faramir hands the necklace over. Its pendant, an ivory ship, is pristine as ever. The leader takes it, examines it, and calls over two of his men.

“You have the letter?”

“Yes.”

“Then take this, and go to the nearest outpost with all haste, unarmed. When they see the token, they should conduct you safely to the steward. Take two horses—go!”

They bow their heads and set out. The leader looks back at Faramir. “You must hope your father thinks more of his son than of his pride,” he says, “for your release depends upon his reversal of a judgment. We were banished, these eight years past. We tire of seeing our wives only in secret, of being hunted like orcs if we are seen.”

Faramir nods calmly. He does not flinch or bite his lip. He does not tell his captor that his father has never been known to reverse a judgment.

He does not say that he is the lesser son, the lesser-loved, ever sacrificed to his father’s aims.

He says nothing, and they tie him behind the horse again and move out.

——

Boromir stumbles into an outpost halfway between the campsite where Faramir was taken and Minas Tirith. The guards let him in, urging him to rest, but he shakes his head even as they press water into his hand.

“Faramir,” he says, still getting his breath. “Faramir. He’s been captured. Twenty of them, I think—attacked us in the woods—tried to take both of us, but I got out. You’ve got to go after them…”

They look at one another anxiously. “There are only ten of us here, my lord,” one says at last. “Our captain rode out with the others last night, south, chasing a party of orcs. Was it orcs who took the lord Faramir?”

“No,” says Boromir, “Men. Gondorians by the look of them and their weapons. And not south. West and a little north, towards the mountains. When did your captain say he would return?” 

More anxious looks. “Not for three days, my lord.”

Boromir swears. Ten is not enough, and he cannot wait three days. “Lend me your fastest horse, then,” he says, “and a day’s supplies. I must get to Minas Tirith.”


	2. Chapter 2

They have reached the foothills of the mountains by the time they enter the base. Its door is inside a cave which is shielded behind brush. Beyond the door, the path turns sharply downward.

Faramir squints to adjust his eyes to torchlight after the cold light of dawn. The pain is getting worse now, and he is feeling the effects of lost blood. Though he does his best to remember the turns they take, above all he hopes that he will soon be bandaged and allowed to rest. Food, too, is in his thoughts, but he does not allow himself to dwell on it.

He catches sight of others when they go through a large hall. These others cheer at the sight of him, and it is not a pleasant sound. He holds his head up a little higher.

At last they have crossed the hall, and Faramir realizes that they are directing him to a wooden cage. It is, at least, big enough both to stand and to lie down in, and he does not think it worthwhile to protest the indignity. They shove him through the door anyway.

He lands on his knees and his elbows (his bound hands slip from under his weight), but scrambles up painfully when he realizes someone is coming in after him. This man takes from his wrists the cord by which they dragged him along, and uses it to secure his ankles. Then he leaves the cage, locking and bolting it behind him.

Faramir supposes that the offer of bandages might have been a lie. After all, the bleeding has lessened to a mere trickle now. But the wound is still dirty, rubbing against dirty cloth, and that concerns him.

It is best to think of immediate concerns. It is best not to think of Boromir or of his father or of what will happen if he is not ransomed. It is best to keep his mind busy with survival.

He decides to wait until someone comes closer, instead of calling out, so for now he leans back against the heavy slats and takes account of his body. Head, uninjured but aching. Mouth and throat dry again. Arms and wrists sore; fingers stiff. Side—possibly scabbing now, but hurting none the less insistently for that. Stomach relatively empty. Legs and feet, weary, and newly adjusting to bonds.

He tells himself that it could be far worse. Since the fighting ended, his captors have not struck him. They untied his hands twice during the night to let the blood flow, though he was kept at swordpoint to prevent any attempts at escape. They offered him water, and though he was given no food, they hadn’t eaten either.

And beyond that, when they took the necklace, he was able to send Boromir a message. Just enough of one to let his brother know he’s alive—alive and waiting.

It could definitely be worse, Faramir decides, and he leans back his head and tries to sleep.

——

Boromir makes Minas Tirith seven hours after leaving the outpost. He changes horses at the first level and thunders upwards, bursting into the throne room where his father sits to the side of the king’s empty throne.

“Faramir’s been captured,” he says, before Denethor can welcome him home. “Faramir’s been captured and I want all the Rangers in the city out there to track him.”

Denethor fawns over him while he tells the story, telling him how glad he is that Boromir is safe, that he escaped, that he came home. Telling him how brave he is, how resourceful.

“I let Faramir get captured,” Boromir interrupts. “And I will do everything in my power to get him back.”

Denethor frowns at that. “Boromir,” he says, “you are my eldest, my captain, my heir. I cannot allow you to risk your life for this. Imagine if you should be lost in the attempt to regain him. I should have no heir left. The line would fail.”

“Father,” says Boromir, “I am not a fool. I know the importance of having an heir to the Stewardship. But Faramir and I have risked our lives side-by-side on many a battlefield. This is no different.”

Denethor raises his eyebrows. “You may send out the Rangers,” he says. “But you may not go yourself. You are needed, Boromir.”

“And so is he,” Boromir shoots back.

He leaves the hall to muster the Rangers.

——

Faramir wakes from his uneasy sleep after a few hours, because the noise in the hall has swelled. The men are eating now, gathered around a long table. Faramir thinks—it is getting harder now, thinking—of when he last had food.

They were about to eat when they were attacked, he realizes. He and Boromir had been preparing their evening meal. They had brought bread from the city, and dried fruit, and Faramir had found herbs with which to make stew of their salted meat. It was their second night out, rambling more than traveling, enjoying the openness and the spring air and one another’s company.

Faramir feels a very different kind of ache, remembering that it was only meant to be an excursion. They had not been traveling as soldiers of Gondor, or as sons of the steward, merely as brothers. But, he thinks, they should have known that such positions cannot be left like a cloak on a hook.

They had not begun their meal before these men sprang from the trees. Which means it has been close to a day since Faramir had bread and cheese and dried fruit, yesterday noon.

Then someone is at the door of the cage. He tenses a little, wondering, but it’s a woman and this calms him. She brings in two buckets, one of supplies and one of water.

“Heard you were injured.”

Faramir nods, indicating his left side. Once her gaze is directed, she notices the dried blood.

“Arms above your head, then.”

He holds them up, grunting a little at the pull on the cut. She moves his tunic out of the way, tilts her head at the cut, and reaches into the bucket of supplies for a cloth.

“Wash it first, then salve.”

Her touch is brisk—not careful, but not deliberately painful. The water is pleasantly cool on his warm skin, though it makes him shiver from time to time. The salve, however, is like nothing he has ever felt before; it angers the pain and does not soothe. Faramir finds himself holding to the slats above his head to keep still and pressing his lips shut tight.

When she has finished applying it, it still burns, but she wraps strips of cloth tightly around his ribs and ties them with a firm knot. She pulls down his tunic, gathers up her things, and goes away. He breathes very carefully.

He breathes very carefully for a very long time, because he does not think he can do anything else.

When everyone at the table is done eating, he is brought water and bread. Having something new to focus on is a relief, and he eats slowly. There is not quite enough that he no longer feels hungry, but when he looks around again he realizes how thin many of his captors are. Living as outlaws cannot be easy, he thinks, and there are many here to provide food for.

He thanks the man who takes away his cup and plate, and receives an odd look in response.

——

In the evening they unlock his door and have him brought out. The cord binding his feet allows him only small steps, but his eyes move fast, taking in the outlaws around him. Around fifty, he guesses, a few more than were gathered at noon.

He hopes that when Boromir finds him, he brings a force more than large enough for the twenty that first attacked.

That thought is not useful, he tells himself, pushing it aside as he finds himself facing the leader again. He nods in greeting—politely, but coldly.

The leader merely looks at him, then gestures for his guards to turn him so he faces the crowd.

“This,” he announces, “is the second child of the steward of Gondor. This is Faramir son of Denethor, and he shall be our ransom.”

Cheers. One of the guards pulls Faramir’s hair, laughing.

“Until word returns from the steward,” continues the leader, “we keep him safely. If the steward meets our demands with violence, we will show him we do not fear to use the same. But until then, he comes to no harm.”

Faramir calculates in his head. About ten hours’ walk from here to where he was captured. From there to Minas Tirith…they had walked it in two days, but riding very hard, it could be just one. So to go from here to the city and back, with time for some negotiations, about four days. One has nearly passed since the messengers had set out.

Three days he can count on safety.

After that, his only plan is to stay alive and to wait.

The leader is talking again, shouting about righting injustice and reclaiming their homes. Faramir’s head aches, and the guards shake him, and somewhere in the back of his mind is a voice saying that he should find out who these men are, and why they were banished. But a much louder thought is telling him that whatever they were banished for, it won’t matter, because Denethor does not reverse judgments and Denethor will not shame himself for the sake of his younger son.

All the outlaws are shouting now and he moves to cover his ears before he remembers that his hands are bound. He feels himself paling and shaking; loneliness vibrates through him; his vision blurs.

When his knees finally buckle, they take him back to the cage and give him a blanket, but the noise goes on.


	3. Chapter 3

Boromir has just returned to the throne room after watching the Rangers set out when a runner comes up from the first level.

“Messengers, my lord. Urgent. They bear tidings of the Lord Faramir.”

Denethor stands up, because otherwise Boromir will run down to the gates with no thought for how a Steward and his son should present themselves. “Have them brought here.”

Boromir paces, paces desperately, as the runner goes down and the messengers are brought up. Denethor is trying to soothe him, but he cannot hear a word of it.

At last the great doors open and Boromir sees the two messengers, flanked by members of the Tower Guard. They are assuredly of the same band who attacked last night, and anger floods him.

These men had a hand in taking his brother. Were it not counterproductive to do so, he would rush upon them now with his sword drawn.

But he keeps back. He holds himself in check, letting the anger pump through his veins with each heartbeat.

The messengers bow. One produces a letter, and they address themselves to Denethor.

“From Ringlor, once sergeant in the army of Gondor, this message.”

Denethor holds out his hand for it. Boromir’s mind races as he tries to place the name. He has heard it before. He knows he has heard it before.

He leans over his father’s shoulder to read the letter, absorbing its gist faster than he had ever thought he could read.

Ringlor has Faramir. Ringlor and his company of fifty were banished eight years ago for refusing to obey orders. They think the judgment unfair. They want it reversed. They want funds to resume life with their families.

And Boromir remembers.

He was sixteen then, sixteen and still under the illusion that the army of Gondor was composed entirely of wise and noble men. And then, as he was newly allowed to frequent mess halls, he began to hear the tales of Captain Angrim. Tales of forced marches at impossible paces, of cut rations as punishment even on the battlefield, of floggings (which were still technically legal in the army, but Boromir had never heard of them being employed), of endless watches even in safe territory and of paranoia towards his own men.

Boromir asked the men if he should go to his father, but they told him to wait. They would do it themselves if it came to that.

And it did. Angrim accused one of his men of spying and ordered him imprisoned. Some of the others doubted the evidence and went to their captain to ask his reasons. He responded by punishing the entire company, who had set about clearing the name of the accused to a higher authority, who had forced Angrim to release him.

Angrim, enraged, ordered them all on a pointless march. Twenty-three miles each direction, two days to complete it. They refused. He reported them. Denethor heard the whole story from the sergeant Ringlor, but banished the company anyway. He could not allow disorder.

And now Boromir shakes his head, just as he did eight years ago. The situation was not the soldiers’ fault. But Denethor could not admit his captains fallible, and now he pays the price.

The steward is lowering the letter now. “You are rogues, disobedient to your superiors,” he says. “You have lost your honor. How can I know you have not already killed the one you claim to keep hostage?”

At this, the other messenger reaches into his pocket. Boromir’s breath catches in his throat as he pulls out a simple leather cord with a pendant. With a strangled cry, he leaps forward to wrench it from the messenger’s hand.

It is identical to the necklace he wears himself, passed down from their mother at her death. But Boromir is not thinking of his mother. He is not looking at the ship of carven ivory that hangs from the cord.

He is looking at the knot.

It is a sheet bend.

——

“A square knot for all is well.” Twelve-year-old Boromir ties one with the ends of his own necklace. “You remember how, don’t you?”

Faramir nods, his tiny fingers twisting the leather strands. “Like this?”

“Yes, like that.” Boromir smiles at him. “We’ll leave them like that when we wear them. But when we want to pass messages, we can tie other knots. They’ve been teaching you other knots, right?”

Faramir nods. “I learned a sheet bend last week.”

“All right,” says Boromir, “then we’ll use that one for help.” They untie their square knots and work sheet bends, Faramir struggling a little. “Whenever you have a problem and you want me, you just tie this knot and get me the necklace.”

Faramir nods again, seriously.

And they use the necklaces time and time again. They slip them under the table at dinner, slide them under each other’s doors at night as an indication of needing to talk in the morning. The sheet bend comes to mean “I’m in trouble with my tutor” and “father is angry with me again” and “I don’t understand how to command a squadron of soldiers.”

Boromir never expects that it will one day mean “I’m captured. Rescue me.”

——

Boromir clasps the necklace in his left hand, his right shooting to the messenger’s arm. He has a thousand questions, some to be put directly (is Faramir hurt?), others to be hinted at only (where is he being kept?) But Denethor interrupts.

“So, your leader demands that I reverse his sentence.”

“All of our sentences, my lord,” corrects the man Boromir is not holding.

Denethor raises his eyebrows. “You will take back a message in return. It will be simple; I think I need not write it down. It is this: you walk this land illegally. The prescribed penalty for such a transgression is death.” He pauses. “The head of your companion will, I think, make this sufficiently clear to your leader, and easy for you to remember.”

The men’s eyes widen. “Father,” Boromir interrupts, “there is much we could ask them—”

But Denethor gestures to the guards. “As time will not permit the ceremonies of execution,” he says, “do not spill his outlaw blood within the city walls.”

A protest dies on Boromir’s lips as the guards call reinforcements and drive the messengers away.


	4. Chapter 4

Faramir passes a restless night, but when the woman comes in the morning to check his wound, it is found to be healing. She tends it again, spreading stinging salve over tender flesh. Although his voice shakes with pain, he thanks her.

She looks him over, and he takes the chance to examine her. She is in her forties, perhaps. Graying hair tidily kept, worry lines on her brow. And if she endured the winter in the clothes she now wears, she must be hardy indeed.

She turns to pick up her things.

“Madam,” Faramir ventures, “they spoke last night of justice and reclamation. I have heard that I am here to persuade my father to reverse a banishment he pronounced eight years past, but eight years ago I was a child not privy to such matters. If you would, may I know—”

She shakes her head. “Not my business. But I’ll tell Ringlor you’ve a mind to speak with him, if you’d care for that.”

Ringlor, then, is the name of the leader. “I would. Thank you, madam.”

She goes then, securing the locks and bolts after her. Faramir draws up his knees. This will be a challenge, he knows, for there are things he must not say, but the risk is worth the chance at information. His mind is too empty as he waits in the cage, and he finds himself lured increasingly towards idle speculation.

If he must speculate, must daydream, must fear and hope and dread, let him do it with as much basis as he may.

——

Three armed men come for him sometime after midday. They take him down a rough corridor to a smaller room, where Ringlor sits behind a table. There is a chair on Faramir’s side, but he does not invite himself to take it.

Ringlor leaves off carving to look at Faramir. “You have questions, then.” 

“Yes,” says Faramir. He clasps his bound hands, not sure how to address the man before him.

“Normally it’s the captors that do the questioning.”

“Yes,” says Faramir, “but I do not know if I have any information useful to you. I cannot until I know more of this circumstance.”

Ringlor shrugs, as if to say Faramir has a point, and gestures for him to sit. He does.

“You are young to remember these matters,” Ringlor begins. “What do you know of the Captain Angrim?”

Faramir tilts his head, puzzled. “Captain Angrim was my tutor in military history and strategy for a number of years.”

He is more puzzled yet to find his own surprise reflected on Ringlor’s face. “When?” Ringlor asks.

“Beginning—six years ago, now. Two years ago, he gave up the post and I entered service.”

There is a keen light in Ringlor’s eyes. Curiosity, perhaps, or something darker. “And how did you find him?”

Faramir pauses a moment. His memories of weekly three-hour lessons are not pleasant.

“The captain was a hard man,” he answers, deciding to choose honesty while he may. “Difficult to please, and swift to assign consequences when he thought my work did not reflect what he taught. He had little patience for innovation.”

“Then we knew indeed the same man.” Ringlor lets out a long breath. “I was a sergeant in Gondor’s army, and served under Angrim after the captain I trained with died of a poisoned arrow. It is for refusal to follow his orders that I and my company were banished.”

Faramir feels a sudden surge of sympathy. Tutors of many sorts came and went through his boyhood, but Angrim was an unpleasant fixture. “Inadvertent disobedience was not difficult with the captain,” he says, a bitter smile tugging at his lip.

“No,” says Ringlor, “but in the army, such would not call the attention of the steward.”

Faramir nods. “Deliberate, then. Tell me of the grounds, for I suspect he had freer reign over his company than he felt with the steward’s son.”

——

Boromir sits in his room and stares at the necklace in his hands. It is late, and he should sleep, but unanswered questions pound in his mind. It irks him that he cannot simply cross the hall to Faramir’s rooms, as he usually does, to talk out his frustrations until his brother quietly offers a thought which changes his perspective. Tonight he is alone, and Faramir is alone, and their father has lengthened the odds of their being together again.

Faramir. Ringlor. Angrim.

He goes to look out the window, and thinks of walking to the walls to ask for any tidings, but everyone in the city has orders to bring news directly to him. So he paces a little, and sits down again, and then takes off his own necklace to hold the two side-by-side.

Angrim, Ringlor, Faramir. Faramir, Ringlor, Angrim.

The square knot in his own necklace seems wrong, very wrong, for all is not well when Faramir’s sheet bend lies before him. He undoes it and works a carrick bend.

_Let’s meet up._

Faramir, Ringlor, Angrim, Faramir—

He remembers.


	5. Chapter 5

On the third day, Faramir does not ask questions. Instead he watches as the people come and go, his ears seeking conversations from which he may learn. And he does learn.

He learns that the horses—there are nineteen—must be taken out of the room which serves as a stable, out of the cave, to graze and exercise each day. The movements of such a group will, Faramir hopes, be of help to any scouts sent out by Boromir.

He learns names and tries to assign them to faces. He learns that the men take turns going at night to visit their families, most of whom live in a farming village some two or three hours off. He learns that occasionally they raid the nearby army outpost for food and supplies.

He learns that the woman who has been tending his wound is named Asleth and that she has a husband—or perhaps a lover—among the banished soldiers. And he realizes, more and ever more keenly, how human these captors of his are. How innocent is their desire to return to the lives taken from them, the families they were forced to leave. Damaging as their chosen method of regaining those things may be, what choice had they before the immovable will of the steward?

He understands them, he thinks. And they are not bad men. They are men cornered, forced to endure bitter circumstances, taking the only path they see.

He wishes he could treat with them freely, but he knows his father would not honor any promises he should make.

Faramir sits awake into the third night, thinking.

——

He is startled awake not long later by the sound of hooves. Torches flare up in the darkened hall and people crowd in. Faramir rises, straining to see and to hear.

He catches the whispers.

_It’s Laradis. Come back from Minas Tirith. Back from Minas Tirith. Yes. Yes, but where’s Sardil?_

Ringlor strides through the crowd, grim and stern. “What news, Laradis?”

“Sir,” says Laradis. He is out of breath; his voice is strained. “Sir, I rode back as fast as I might—”

“You rode back alone,” says Ringlor.

Laradis bows his head. “I rode back with this,” he answers, and he hands something to Ringlor. It is round and wrapped in cloth.

Faramir, too, bows his head. He had known that his father would not receive the messengers kindly, but he had hoped for better than this.

Ringlor unwraps the cloth. Faramir cannot see well through the crowd, but he has seen enough battle not to strain. He hears the muffled gasp, the silence after. And though he had not thought it possible, Ringlor’s voice grows grimmer yet.

“Sardil’s wife must be informed at once. It is her right to bury what remains, if she so wishes. Who will go to her?”

“I should go,” says Laradis, “for I saw him die.”

“You have ridden many miles without rest. But if you feel it to be your duty—”

“I do.”

“So be it. Take time first to eat, if you can, and take with you a companion of your choice. As for the rest of us, we must take the next step.” Ringlor rewraps the head of Sardil and places it in Laradis’ hands once more, then raises his voice as he faces the crowd. “The steward has proven himself willing to use violence, even to the point of death,” he says. “To prove to him our seriousness in this matter, to prove that we are not dissuaded by this further injustice, we must be willing to respond in kind.”

Faramir’s breathing quickens despite himself and he presses his arm against his wounded side. Boromir is coming, he tells himself. Father has surrendered me but Boromir will come, and I will hold on, and I will hold to hope—

There is a great shout from the crowd, and now his door is being unlocked. He comes quietly despite the pushes and shoves. When he stumbles on the rope between his feet, they push him again, and he lands on his knees before Ringlor.

Ringlor holds up a hand and the people are quiet.

“This,” says Ringlor, “is the second child of the steward. This is Faramir, son of Denethor, and on his father’s head be all that he suffers among us.”

Faramir closes his eyes and bites his lip at that.

He does not see the backhand coming. As he loses his balance, they surround him.

——

He is fifteen and sitting across a table from Captain Angrim.

“In such a situation your arms are not for fighting,” Angrim is telling him. “You protect your face and you cover any wounds you have.”

Faramir nods obediently and takes a note of it.

“I have suggested to your father the Steward that your combat training include occasional sessions on hand-to-hand unarmed combat, especially situations in which you are at a disadvantage. To learn what these situations call for only when they arise can be disastrous.”

That is not a pleasant thought, exactly, but it makes sense. Faramir nods again.

“The Lord Steward informed me that as your hours of combat training are occupied enough with efforts of sword and bow, such matters are to be included under the teaching of strategy.”

This gives Faramir pause. “Then—you will be my instructor for this, captain?”

“Yes. If the help of others is required, the guards are at our service.” Angrim glares at Faramir suddenly. “Are you objecting?”

“Not at all, captain.” Faramir keeps his voice level, calm. “I merely expected to be matched with boys of my own age.”

Angrim snorts. “And what good do you think that would do you? If you are ever captured, you must expect to be overmatched. To train lightly, easily, will give you false confidence. Over this next week, review what we have discussed about interrogation. You will be expected to put it into practice when we meet again.” And he stands, indicating that Faramir is dismissed.

Faramir stands also. “Yes, captain,” he says, and he leaves the room cursing the fact that Boromir is in Osgiliath and cannot help him prepare for what he must face.

——

(He is fifteen, feeling the back of Captain Angrim’s hand against his cheek, gritting his teeth, knowing the guards look on him with pity.)

He is nineteen, and he lies on the dirt floor of the cave and pities the men whose eyes hold only anger.

(He twists his hands because the ropes itch.)

He twists his hands because if he can get them free he will not have to decide between protecting his face and protecting his wounded side.

(He wishes he could have asked Boromir what to do.)

He wishes Boromir were not so far away.

(Angrim is drawing back a hand, threatening.)

Ringlor’s lifted hand, which stays the crowd, descends.

(He grabs Faramir from the chair before striking him, pulling him into the blow. Faramir’s head rings. For a moment, he can hardly think of the information he is meant to be keeping from Angrim. But then he remembers with unfortunate clarity—the key. The key he hid between the pages of that blue book.)

One of them hauls Faramir to his feet so he cannot curl up against the blows. After an sharp elbow catches his left side, he risks exposing his face to press his arm against the reaggravated wound.

(If he offers up the information, he will be free to go and have a bath before dinner.)

If his father could see him now, perhaps he would regret antagonizing Ringlor.

(But such an act will disappoint both his tutor and his father.)

But if Denethor expects Faramir to find his way home unaided, he will find himself, as ever, disappointed.

(It is hard to think properly when his face smarts, when Angrim is shouting so close that Faramir can feel his breath.)

It is hard to think escape possible when he half-chokes on the blood from his nose and lips while the fists still fly, unpitying.

(And then a clock is striking. His allotted time for the lesson is over.)

And then Ringlor is shouting above the fray.

(“The key was there, captain,” Faramir says, pointing, after Angrim has untied him.)

“Enough of this chaos!” 


	6. Chapter 6

When Ringlor halts his men, Faramir wants nothing more than to lie down and be left alone. Ringlor, however, wants to talk. He has Faramir led over to the long tables, where they sit across from one another.

“You understand the reasoning behind this?” Ringlor asks.

Faramir struggles to sit straight, to form words around the blood leaking into his mouth. “My father has evidenced that he takes more care for his policies than for his son’s welfare. You wish to reawaken his sentiments by taking yet less care for my welfare than he. But forgive me, sergeant—as yet, only I receive this message of your unswayed intent, and had I the authority to treat with you, I would already have done so. How do you plan to convince my father that any report you may send is not an empty threat?”

He is out of breath when he finishes, and finds himself glad enough to wait for Ringlor’s reply.

“You are in the habit of writing to your family when in the field, are you not?” Ringlor says at last.

“To my brother, yes,” Faramir answers. Enough blood has collected in his mouth now (mostly from his nose) that he must do something with it, but he does not wish to risk the seeming defiance of spitting it out. He swallows it back instead, grimacing.

“And the Steward reads your military reports, does he not?”

“Yes.” Faramir would doubt it, except that Denethor never fails to find a point on which to critique him, often before the Council.

“Then they will know your writing.”

“Yes,” Faramir answers. “But they will also know if a letter has been dictated, and suspect it to be forced.”

Ringlor waves a hand. “I am prepared to allow you to write a letter of your own,” he says, “provided that it is brief and to the point. It will, of course, be thoroughly examined for any attempts at coded messages, after which you will be asked to copy it with any changes deemed necessary.”

Faramir’s heart leaps. To write to Boromir! It seems a dream. But they are untying his hands and placing pen and paper before him. Clumsily, he opens the bottle of ink and dips the pen.

_To Boromir, captain of Gondor and my beloved brother, and to Denethor, Lord and Steward of the same realm, my honored father,_

_From Faramir, captive of Ringlor,_

_Greetings._

His hand is already clenching and shaking, and he is not sure how to begin. He is far too aware of the fifty sets of eyes behind him, of Ringlor before him gazing upon the paper. The resounding ache of his body makes his mind unclear, but he struggles through.

_I live yet, and live in hope that I may be returned to you. I took only a slight wound in the fighting, and it has been faithfully tended. My captors are not cruel._

Blood drips from his nose onto the middle of the paper, as though to contradict what he has written. He stares at it dully before reaching again for words.

_Only now, since they learned that their messenger was executed, have they harmed me. For this I cannot blame them, and my own life has not been threatened. Still, I ask of you to consider both the justice and the practicality of heeding their demands, that I may be restored to you and to Gondor’s service. Until then, I hope to endure with courage._

There is so much more he wants to say, so many wordless thoughts crowding into his mind. This one chance to communicate with his brother, and he cannot frame what he feels.

_Boromir: blame not yourself for these circumstances. When next we ride out together, I am sure we will do so to better fortune._

It hardly suffices, but it is the best he can manage now. Dipping his pen again with one hand, and clamping shut his nose with the other so blood will not drip on the page again, he closes.

_Faithful in love for you and in devotion to Gondor, I remain,_

_Faramir, brother and son._

He reads over the letter once more, finds it utterly inadequate, and shakes his head as he passes it over.

As Ringlor examines it and hands it off, Faramir leans forward with his elbows on the table, resting his forehead on his right hand while still applying pressure to his nose with his left. He is too worn now for vigilance, too worn for anything save a vague hope that the pain will fade and the noise will end.

Instead a commotion breaks out at the entrance.

——

Boromir wearies of Minas Tirith. The walls of the city seem to press in on him, and the house is starkly empty without Faramir’s presence. Long practice at swordplay with the guards offers some relief, but he fears to lose his head in visions of avenging his brother, and limits himself. He often confines himself to the seventh circle, that any news may find him easily, but occasionally an urge takes him and he charges through the streets, heading to inspect cadets or inquire after trebuchet repairs.

He sees Denethor little; his father’s business of state goes on as though Faramir’s absence is a matter of no consequence. Boromir, however, refuses to attend the Council if his brother’s fate goes unmentioned.

Three days have passed since the capture, with the dawn of the fourth approaching, when he finds himself lying awake in bed. He is struck by the absurdity of this; he has always been talented at falling asleep quickly and soundly. Faramir is the insomniac, the thinker who drowns in his reflections come sundown rather than sinking into sleep. He wonders whether it is so even now, whether at this late hour Faramir still lies awake, shifting in his bonds and thinking of his brother.

If so, Boromir hopes it is memories which keep him from rest, and nothing worse.

He sits up, growling a curse under his breath. He has had enough of idleness, of lying about when his brother may be wounded, tortured, starved. May be crying for comfort even now in the darkness, or reaching to touch the necklace which is no longer there.

It is enough, Boromir decides. And with a host of images in his head to drive him, he dresses for riding and makes his pack.

In the last grayness before dawn, he gives a guard a message for his father, saddles his horse, and sets out for Ostrandir, the fortress he passed in returning to the city. The garrison will receive him, and the rangers will stop there to rest or resupply when they have news. Meeting them there will afford the matter some of the haste it deserves.

He would not have it said that Boromir of Gondor did not do his utmost for his brother.


End file.
